[db-wg] db 1.86 and descr objects

Hi all

New member of the DB-WG here.

Some of our objects were affected by the change to the "descr" object.

FWIW, I fully support the change to the object type and removing required
attributes.

HOWEVER, I am EXTREMELY UPSET that my objects were edited without my
consent or even a warning.

	11 April, clean-up existing "descr:" attributes where the RIPE NCC enforced organisation names

In our objects, we wanted to keep our org name in the descr attribute.
Having our objects unilaterately changed by RIPE NCC as a "clean up", is
frankly not acceptable.  And worse, it only affected some of our
objects, not all of them as I would have expected.  IMHO, the worst part
is the "last-modified" field was not updated, nor was a "your object has
changed" email generated.

Many people use the descr field for things, as an example: the "name"
attribute at bgp.he.net.  When browsing through the ASes in Germany, I
noticed many companies that were likely hit by this (they showed a
partial or complete address in the "name" field, instead of the name of
the company), including one of the largest ISPs in Germany.

I was unable to find a discussion of the _clean-up_ in the WG archives.
Why was it decided not to inform the affected members, or even all
members via the announce mailing list?  Is that a standard policy?

-- 
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.